In the constellation Auriga is the nice little open cluster M36. Wasn't expecting the bonus object of NGC1931 to appear as well Nice little emission nebula to the edge of the frame. Image processed by Noel Carboni, acquired by Greg Parker.

Well you have a DSLR so you are half way there at taking deep-sky images. All you need is a mount that tracks the stars and I can highly recommend the AstroTrac TT320 which sits on a sturdy tripod. You need a ball head joint and a geared head and you can then track the stars with your DSLR. This is especially good for very wide field shots of the Milky Way.

The light pollution is not good from where I work, I am surrounded by Sodium street lights - but I use a Hutech IDAS light pollution filter which seems to do a reasonably good job.

You use a polar alignment scope to set up the AstroTrac [pointing in the right direction] then you move the camera on the ball joint to point at the area you want to photograph. Focus the camera and then set off your exposures. The AstroTrac just makes sure the assembly moves at the same rate as the rotation of the Earth so you don't get star trails.